Communique: The 633rd meeting of the AU Peace and Security Council on its partnership with the United Nations Peace Building Commission (UNPBC)

AFRICAN UNION

(A/n juhi

P. O. Box 3243, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Tel.: (251-11) 551 38 22 Fax: (251-11) 519321

Email: situationroom@africa-union.org

PEACE AND SECURITY COUNCIL 633^rd MEETING

18 OCTOBER 2016

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA

PSC/PR/COMM. (DCXXXIII)

The Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU), at its 633^rd meeting, held in Addis Ababa, on 18 October 2016, adopted the following decision on its partnership with the United Nations Peace Building Commission (UNPBC):

Council,

1. Takes note of the briefings made by the Chairperson and the Vice-Chairperson of the UNPBC on its work and efforts in peace building in Africa and the prospects for enhancing the partnership between the AUPSC and the UNPBC, including in the area of conflict prevention and sustaining peace on the continent;

2. Takes note of the briefing by the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support on the Peacebuilding Fund, which supports conflict prevention and sustains peace efforts in twenty African countries;

3. Recalls its previous press statements and communiques on the issue of peace building, conflict prevention and promotion of peace in Africa;

4. Further recalls resolutions A/RES/70/262 and S/RES/2282(2016) on the review of the peace building architecture, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council, respectively, which are landmark steps recognizing that "sustaining peace" encompasses activities aimed at preventing the outbreak, escalation, continuation and recurrence of conflicts, addressing root causes of conflicts, assisting parties to conflict to end hostilities, ensuring national ownership and reconciliation, as well as recovery, reconstruction and development;

5. Commends the UNPBC for its efforts in Africa and urges it to continue consolidating its work with a view to preventing conflict and assisting those countries that have emerged from conflicts, in order to prevent their relapse;

6. Emphasizes the provision of gender sensitive peace building activities, including the role of women in peacebuilding, the importance of women's equal participation in all efforts in the maintenance and promotion of peace and security and the need to increase women's role in decision-making with regard to conflict prevention and resolution and peacebuilding; In this regard, Council welcomes the adoption by the UNPBC of its Gender Strategy to integrate a gender perspective into all its work and strengthen its engagement in gender-related aspects of peacebuilding;

7. Stresses the importance of youth participation in peacebuilding in this regard Council urges Member States to increase their investments in the youth as one of the ways of sustaining peace;

8. Reiterates the importance of preventive diplomacy in peace building as a tool to stop brewing crises before they erupt into a violent stage In this regard, Council emphasizes the need to ensure that early warning is matched with early response;

9. Stresses the need for more proactive measures in conflict management, especially through the mapping of fragile points for early engagement, including stronger and predictable budget allocation for preventive diplomacy;

10. Further stresses the importance of effective partnership and cooperation between the UN and the regional and sub-regional organizations including the AU, to improve coordination and cooperation in peace building, and increase synergies to ensure the coherence and complementarity of such efforts;

11. Calls for greater collaboration and coordination of the efforts of the two organs and the need for joint analysis of early warning signals.

12. Decides as follows to enhance the partnership:

1. meeting between AUPSC and UNPBC should be annual, with the venue alternating between Addis Ababa and New York;

2. joint visits to conflict and post-conflict areas in Africa;

3. to organize PSC and UNPBC interactive sessions which post-conflict African countries will be invited in order to enable both the PSC and UNPBC to learn more about the challenges on the ground; and

4. to organize future joint retreats to exchange views on conflict prevention and peace building issues.

8. Decides to remain actively seized of the matter.